A Casualty of War: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Bess Crawford Mysteries)

by Charles Todd

  He had told the absolute truth, his voice as level as mine. But not all of the truth. He had left his room.

  “What’s this all about, Constable?” I asked. “My porridge is congealing as we speak.”

  “There was an attack on that man who fell down the stairs here at The George. Around two in the morning. The doctor’s dog began barking, and the doctor came down at once, but someone had pulled Mr. Spencer off his cot and was trying to throttle him. The doctor got there, the dog at his heels, and after a struggle, the person got away. It was quite dark in the room, the lamp had been blown out, and neither Mr. Spencer nor Dr. Harrison got a good look at the assailant. All they could agree on was that he was not as tall as the doctor.” His eyes flicked over Simon, as if measuring his height.

  “Is Mr. Spencer all right?” I asked at once, remembering the ribs and the blow to the head.

  “Doctor says he has a few bruises, but no harm done. Not from want of trying. I saw the marks around Mr. Spencer’s throat when I got there. And assorted scrapes.”

  Simon asked, “How did he get away? This man?”

  “Doctor was too worried about his patient to give chase. The dog followed whoever it was into the yard, but left off when he heard Doctor whistle for him.”

  “Did the dog bite the man?” I asked, hopefully. It would be one way of identifying him.

  “Doctor doesn’t know. And the dog isn’t saying. But there was no blood in its jaws.” Constable Simpson’s expression was stern. “Mr. Spencer is a stranger. And so are you. There’s no reason anyone in the village would wish to harm him, is there?”

  Which pointedly left us as suspects.

  “And no reason for us to harm him,” I said firmly. “I attended him after his fall, before Dr. Harrison arrived.”

  I knew what he was about to ask. If we’d pushed Mr. Spencer down the stairs.

  “The inn staff can tell you we were not here when Mr. Spencer fell.”

  “What is his business in the village?”

  “You must ask Mr. Spencer that. He was in no condition to tell me more than where it hurt. He was asked if there was anyone we could notify, and he told us there was not. What does he say brought him here?”

  “He was passing through, and as it was late, he decided to stop over at The George.”

  I didn’t dare glance in Simon’s direction.

  Constable Simpson was a thorough man, but not one blessed with imagination. He wanted facts and proof. And so far there was nothing that connected us to Mr. Spencer.

  After several more questions about our reasons for staying in the village, he closed his notebook, putting it away in the breast pocket of his tunic, along with the pencil. As he did, he cautioned, “I’d not be planning on leaving the village before the police have got to the bottom of this business. We’ve never had trouble of this kind here, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  As he started for the door, I asked, “May I call on Mr. Spencer this morning? I’m worried about his ribs.”

  “Doctor is looking after him well enough, Sister.”

  “I’m sure he is, but Mr. Spencer was my patient before he was Dr. Harrison’s, and that also counts for something.”

  Reluctantly he considered the point. “Very well,” he said at last. “If Doctor agrees.”

  And he was gone. Simon and I looked at each other, and he was about to say something when I glimpsed the edge of a maid’s skirts vanishing around the corner.

  Betty was on duty this morning, although I hadn’t seen her in the dining room.

  I put my finger to my lips and walked out of the small parlor. She was nowhere in sight.

  “Ears,” I said to Simon, and we went back to finish our breakfast.

  When we were sure that no one could overhear us, he asked, “This is an odd turn of events. Who would attack Spencer?”

  “It would help if we knew what had brought him here.”

  “Is Ellis the same height as the doctor? What if he guessed Spencer had broken in and stolen the papers having to do with Travis? And came to retrieve them? We haven’t told anyone what I saw in Spencer’s valise. If someone was after the papers last night, it would have to be Ellis. He has the only reason I can think of to attack Spencer.”

  “But how did Mr. Ellis learn about Mr. Spencer?”

  “Howe went to the surgery. He might have asked to see Dr. Harrison’s patient. If he reported to Ellis when he got back to Bury and mentioned Spencer at all, Ellis might have recognized the name or a description. How many people outside of the village here knew that Spencer could be found in the surgery?”

  “There’s Mrs. Travis.” I added quickly as Simon was about to object, “No, of course I don’t think she came to the surgery herself. But if Betty is half the gossip she’s said to be, Mrs. Travis was bound to hear about the other stranger in the village. If she had someone she trusted, she might have sent him to the surgery. But hardly to attack Mr. Spencer.” I set my knife and fork across my plate, and rose. “Let’s see how our patient is faring.”

  We walked in the cold air of morning to the surgery, feeling the wind as we crossed the upper reaches of the green. And then we were at the surgery and knocking at the door.

  Dr. Harrison’s assistant came to answer the summons. “Doctor’s seeing a patient just now,” she said. “You can sit in the waiting room if you like.”

  “We’ve really come to see Mr. Spencer, not the doctor,” I said with a smile. “Constable Simpson has just called to tell us that there was a disturbance in the night here.”

  “I was that glad I was at home,” she answered fervently, “and not on night duty. Doctor says he’ll ask Sister Potter to sit with the patient tonight. He was expecting to send Mr. Spencer to her cottage for nursing, but his ribs are still worrying. It’s a marvel that there was no new damage after last night.”

  “I doubt his assailant will come back,” Simon assured her.

  “You never know,” she answered darkly, and turned to lead us back to the room where Mr. Spencer was lying on his cot, hugging his valise to his chest and looking thoroughly miserable. He had turned to the door, his eyes wide with alarm, when the doctor’s assistant knocked before entering.

  “What is it you want?” he asked, a worried frown on his face now.

  “Just to see how you are,” I said cheerfully, walking in as the assistant turned away. “Constable Simpson told us what happened.”

  “Oh God, it was awful. Bad enough to be laid up in this way, unable to put any weight on that foot, my ribs hurting every time I move. And then to be half killed by that madman. It’s enough to give anyone a fright.”

  “But how did he get in? What did he want?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what he wanted,” Mr. Spencer snapped. “As for getting in, Dr. Harrison told me afterward that the surgery door is always unlocked, and there’s a bell that can be pushed in an emergency, to bring the doctor down. Anybody could have walked in. It’s ridiculous. I told them to leave me the dog tonight.”

  Watching his face, I thought he was lying about not knowing what his attacker was after.

  “Have you looked to see if any of your belongings are missing?” Simon asked. We could see a wallet, a handkerchief, and a small pile of coins sitting on the table next to the cot. In plain view.

  “No. Nothing is missing.” Then Mr. Spencer added quickly, “I don’t have anything worth stealing.” He nodded toward the valise. “Clothes, an extra pair of boots, a jumper. There’s nothing anyone would want.” But he avoided Simon’s eyes as he answered, and I knew the papers he was carrying were still there in the valise.

  “That must be terribly uncomfortable, at least for your ribs,” I said gently. “Shall I put that under the cot for you?”

  But he shook his head, unwilling to part with it.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Spencer?” The English are a notoriously private people, not given to asking for personal information on such short acquaintance. But I tried to put a lightness in
my voice, and use a conversational tone.

  “I don’t see why you should care,” he answered curtly.

  “As a nursing Sister, I am used to asking wounded men where they are from, and if there is anyone I could write to, to let the family know their son or brother or husband is all right, and expected to recover. Were you in the war, Mr. Spencer?”

  “No. I was born with one kidney. They wouldn’t have me.”

  “Do you have enemies? Someone who could have followed you here and decided the village is a likely enough place to be rid of you for good?” Simon asked. No one had mentioned attempted murder, but that got Mr. Spencer’s attention.

  He was suddenly agitated. “No. Why should I have enemies? I’ve done nothing wrong. And if you really wish me well, as you claim to do, you’ll go and leave me in peace.”

  I had been looking down at a small white square on the floor, surely the edge of a calling card that must have fallen from the table where the contents of Mr. Spencer’s pockets had been put. I bent down and picked it up. “I think this must be yours. Good day, Mr. Spencer.” I set the card safely under his wallet.

  And then we left.

  “What did the card say?” Simon asked when we’d left the surgery and were walking back to the inn.

  “Oddly enough, it had the name of Ellis, Ellis and Whitman scribbled in a corner.”

  “Good Lord,” Simon said, surprised.

  “But there was a firm’s name printed on the other side. I only glimpsed it, but I thought it was Florian Agency. Something like that.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. A hiring service, for instance, for household staff? A secretarial service?” Those had become very popular in the past ten years. “It didn’t give a location, though. Just the name. You’d think whoever gave out the card would have wanted people to find his place of business.” I looked at the rows of houses across the High from us, and thought again how serene they appeared. Or those closest to the church, for that matter, and another cluster just up from The George. “Do you think the Vicar would set up another meeting with Mrs. Travis? I’d very much like to speak to her again. She may have had time to reconsider.”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Mr. Caldwell wasn’t at the Vicarage. We found him in the church, selecting hymns for the morning service. He was humming bits of favorites as we came down the aisle, but when he looked up and saw who it was, he broke off.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked, standing there by the pulpit, a hymnal in one hand and in the other the stack of brown and white numerals he was preparing to put on the board.

  I said, smiling, “I’m so sorry we all seemed to get off on the wrong footing. We never meant to cause any harm here, or to worry Mrs. Travis. I came to help a friend, and even that didn’t turn out well.”

  “No harm done, then,” the Vicar said, but his smile was formal, not that of a kind shepherd speaking to his flock.

  “Do you think we might call on Mrs. Travis once more? Just to reassure her that our intentions were good, even if our efforts were disturbing to her.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Would you ask her? We’re still at The George. I would take it as a favor, if you would intercede on our behalf.”

  He considered the question. “I will make no promises.”

  “We expect none.”

  Unbending a little, his voice less cold, he said, “Wouldn’t it be best for you just to leave?”

  “I’ve done no wrong. Disappearing into the night gives the appearance that I must have done.”

  “Yes, all right, I see that.” He took a deep breath. “Let me finish what I’ve begun here. In an hour, then?”

  We thanked him and left.

  As we passed through the churchyard, I stopped at the stone belonging to Hugh Travis. “The memorials in the aisle floor are older members of the family. I wonder . . .”

  I began to cast about, looking at dates. “Simon, here’s an Alan. Hugh’s father, I’d be willing to bet on it.” He was looking at dates as well when I spotted another one. “Here’s a Nicholas. If I’m right, he’d be James Travis’s great-grandfather.”

  The stone was ornate, like those of Hugh and Alan. Henrietta, the wife of Alan, had an equally lovely one. A weeping tree, very popular in Victorian times, crowned it, and the lettering was deep.

  “But look here—here’s Charlotte. She must have been married to Nicholas, she’s buried beside him. Her stone is quite ordinary.” No weeping willow, no ship on troubled seas, no lilies or roses. Just the name and date. Not even Beloved Wife of.

  We were staring at it, our backs to the path. Someone spoke, and we started guiltily.

  It was Mrs. Caldwell. “I see you’ve found the Travis family plot.” Her voice wasn’t as cordial as it had been that first morning. But she was polite.

  “I’d just noticed. These must be Mrs. Travis’s late husband, his father and mother, and his grandfather and grandmother.”

  “Yes, I believe that’s right.”

  “But look here—that must be Nicholas’s wife. Her stone is quite different.”

  “So it is,” she said, and with a brief nod, she walked on toward the south porch.

  We turned and went the other way, past The George, past three stone houses with gardens in front—gone to seed at this time of year, but it was possible to imagine how pretty they would be in high summer.

  Back again to The George to wait for the Vicar to come. We sat in my room, beside the fire, burning comfortably now.

  “I don’t think she’ll agree,” Simon commented, looking at his watch for the third time.

  “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  I heard footsteps on the stairs and hurried to the door, but it was only Betty with an armload of fresh linen for the cupboard just beyond Simon’s room.

  The hour passed, finally, and there was no sign of the Vicar. I sighed, turned from the window where I’d been standing for the past quarter of an hour, and said, “If we go through London on the way home, I might be able to find out what this Florian Agency is. Mrs. Hennessey might know.”

  “That’s a good possibility,” he agreed. “But I’m not sure it has anything to do with the attack on Spencer. Another client, very likely.”

  “In which case, the Agency must know him.”

  Simon rose from his chair and walked to the window, his back to me. “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem, Bess. I don’t know why Spencer has those papers, but I can’t see him telling us. And there’s no one we can ask. If Ellis doesn’t know about him, if we’re wrong about that, we could do more harm than good by bringing Spencer to Ellis’s attention. We can drive to Wiltshire and find out what has happened to Travis. With any luck, the clinic will find him in time. The Colonel will do what he can to see that the Captain is given better care. Or find a way to get a message to his family.”

  I sighed. “I wish I knew what to do. The longer we wait for news, the more worrying it is. He was so bent on suicide. A few minutes in that bleak little room listening to the screams on the other side of a thin partition was almost more than I could stand. Imagine hearing it day and night. I wish there was some way to save all of them.”

  “That’s not a burden you can take on, Bess.”

  “I don’t know. The war is over—but not for those men. It might never be. Not really.” I stared into the heart of the fire. “In the euphoria of the war ending, I thought I could work one more miracle. We’d somehow saved so many, against worse odds. Captain Travis, the man I met in the canteen, didn’t deserve to be locked up, even if the doctors believe they’re doing it for his own good. Tilting at windmills, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “I understand. But he can’t be set free, either. Not in the state you saw him in.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true. Given care and better surroundings, he might surprise all of us.”

  “Not if he still feels he must find this mysteri
ous Lieutenant. That’s impossible. The man could be anywhere by now. He could well have been killed in the last days of the fighting.”

  He broke off and turned toward the door as we heard footsteps on the stairs a second time. A measured tread. The Vicar.

  I went to the door, standing there looking up at him as he reached the landing at the top of the steps and came toward me.

  “Did you speak to her?” I asked.

  “It took some persuasion, but she has agreed to a meeting. But not at the house. She’s waiting in the church.”

  We caught up our coats and followed him down the stairs. Simon insisted on using the motorcar, and I think he reasoned that we might not wish to walk back to The George in the company of the Vicar or Mrs. Travis.

  Getting down by the low wall around the churchyard, the three of us went to the porch door, opened it, and walked inside. As our footsteps echoed on the stone flooring, I looked for Mrs. Travis.

  She was standing below the plaque to her late son, looking up at it with such sadness that my heart went out to her. Then, hearing us, she turned toward us, and her expression changed. It was cold and distant now.

  “Mrs. Travis? Thank you for coming,” I said, as if she had arrived at Mrs. Hennessey’s for tea. Walking briskly, I managed to meet her while she was still there, close by the plaque. “He must have been an extraordinary man,” I said, looking up at it. “Many good men died in France. I believe that Captain Alan Travis is a fine man too. Just now he’s confused, and helpless to find answers that will help him sort out what happened to him. I know you don’t care for that branch of your husband’s family. But I don’t believe that Alan Travis wants to inherit The Hall, only a chance to return to Barbados. I would think that’s what you want as well.”

  To her credit, she listened to me politely, her face unreadable.

  When I had finished, she glanced toward Simon, then turned back to me.

  “Then how do you explain this?”

  She reached into the pocket of her coat and took out a small envelope, the sort that my mother used when sending an invitation to a friend. It was of excellent quality, had come from a stationer’s shop.